Psst! The human brain is wired for gossip

By staff and wire services reports

May 20th, 2011

Hearing gossip about people can change the way you see them — literally, NPR reports. Negative gossip actually alters the way our visual system responds to a particular face, according to a study published online by the journal Science. The findings suggest that the human brain is wired to respond to gossip, researchers say. And it adds to the evidence that gossip helped early humans get ahead. "Gossip is helping you to predict who is friend and who is foe," says Lisa Feldman Barrett, distinguished professor of psychology at Northeastern University and an author of the study. Barrett is part...

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